but, beyond ... (open letter to anne mcclintock and rob nixon)

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Critical Response

II

But, beyond ...(Open Letter to Anne McClintock and Rob Nixon)

Jacques Derrida

Translated by Peggy Kamuf

Dear Anne McClintock and Rob Nixon,

We have never met but, after reading your "response," I have a sense

of something familiar, as if our paths had often crossed at colloquia orin some other academic place. So I hope you will not mind my addressingyou directly-in order to tell you without delay how grateful I am to youand to avoid speaking of you in the third person. Whenever I take partin a debate or, which is not often, in a polemic, I make it a point to quoteextensively from the text I am discussing, even though this is not standard

practice. Since I am going to be doing that here, by addressing you

directly I will save the space (and I'm thinking also of CriticalInquiry's

hospitality) otherwise needed for lengthy formulas such as: "Anne

McClintock and Rob Nixon go so far as to write ..., " "the authors of'No Names Apart' claim that ..., " "my interlocutors have not understoodthat ..., " and so forth.

Yes, that's right, I am grateful. You have brought useful details tothe attention of ill-informed readers. Many who want to fight apartheidin South Africa still know little of the history of this state racism. Nodoubt you will agree with me on this point: the better informed, themore lucid, and, I dare say, the more competent the fight, the better itwill be able to adjust its strategies. I am also grateful to the editors of

CriticalInquiry. By publishing your article and inviting me to respond toit, they have chosen to continue the debate that I began here in a modest

way. Despite the duly celebrated liberalism and pluralism which open

CriticalInquiry 13 (Autumn 1986)

? 1986 by The University of Chicago. 0093-1896/86/1301-0009$01.00. All rights reserved.

155



156 CriticalResponse Jacques Derrida

the pages of this excellent journal to the most diverse and opposedintellectual currents, it has in the main been devoted until now to theoretical

research such as goes on for the most part in especially academic envi-ronments. Now, here is a case where this journal has organized and givenfree rein to a discussion on a violently political issue, one which has the

appearance at least of being barely academic. I am very pleased with this

development and even congratulate myself for having been the occasionfor it. But I must add, to the credit of certain American colleagues and

students, that apartheidis becoming a serious issue on several campuses[see "Postscript"below], and I regret that the same is not the case elsewhere,in other countries. Given this, academic journals have the obligation to

speak about it; it is even in their best interest. Initially, my short text wasnot intended for Critical Inquiry (and in a moment I will come back tothis criterion of "context" which your reading entirely neglects). Never-

theless, I agreed to its republication in CriticalInquirywith this in mind:

to engage a reflection or provoke a discussion about apartheidin a veryvisible and justly renowned place-where, in general, people talk aboutother things.

Reading you, I very quickly realized that you had no serious objectionsto make to me, as I will try to demonstrate in a moment. So I began to

have the following suspicion: what if you had only pretended to findsomething to reproach me with in order to prolong the experience overseveral issues of this distinguished journal? That way, the three of uscould fill the space of another twenty or so pages. My suspicion arosesince you obviously agree with me on this one point, at least: apartheid,the more it's talked about, the better.

But who will do the talking? And how? These are the questions.Because talking about it is not enough. On such a grave subject, one

must be serious and not say just anything. Well, you, alas, are not always

as serious as the tone of your paper might lead one to think. In yourimpatient desire to dispense a history lesson, you sometimes say justanything. The effect you want to produce is quite determined, but inorder to arrive at it, you are willing to put forward any kind of countertruth,

especially when, in your haste to object,you project nto my text whateverwill make your job easier. This is a very familiar scenario, as I will try todemonstrate as briefly as possible.

Jacques Derrida, Directeur d'Etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Etudesen Sciences Sociales in Paris, is the author of, among other works, OfGrammatology,WritingandDifference,Margins of Philosophy, nd Dissemination.His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Racism's Last Word,"

appeared in the Autumn 1985 issue. Peggy Kamuf teaches French atMiami University, Ohio. She is the author of Fictions of FeminineDesire.



CriticalInquiry Autumn 1986 157

1

As you ought to have realized, I knew well before you did that aneight-page text accompanying an art exhibit couldn't be a historical or

anthropological treatise. By reason of its context and its dimensions (whichI was not free to choose), by reason also of its style, it could only be an

appeal, an appeal to others and to other kinds of action. You're quiteright when you say "such calls to action will remain of limited strategicworth" (p. 154). I had no illusions in this regard and I didn't need to bereminded of it by anyone. What I, on the other hand, must recall to

your attention-and I will remind you of it more than once-is that the

text of an appeal obeys certain rules; it has its grammar, its rhetoric, itspragmatics. I'll come back to this point in a moment, to wit: as you didnot take these rules into account, you quite simply did not read my text,in the most elementary and quasi-grammatical sense of what is called

reading.As for the original context of "Racism's Last Word,"' the catalog of

an exhibit, I regret that you didn't read the careful note placed in in-

troduction to Peggy Kamuf's excellent translation. It's true, of course,that if you had taken it into account, you would not have written anything,

this debate would not have taken place and that would have been toobad. On "limited strategic worth," we're in total agreement, alas. Yet youknow, these things are always more complicated, more difficult to evaluate,more overdetermined than people think. My very modest contribution

is part of a complex ensemble which I have neither the time nor the

space to reconstitute. And even if I could, its limits are by definition not

fixed and are in the process of shifting at the very moment I am writingto you. These overdeterminations should be of interest to historians,

politologists, or activists who are eager to go beyond abstraction and

partial perspectives, who, like you, are concerned not to dissociate wordsand history. If I had done nothing more than provoke the present debate

in a place of high academic visibility, induce the article which I am now

about to discuss, and get the attention of a certain number of influential

and competent readers, the interest of "such calls to action" "will remain

of limited strategic worth," no doubt about that, but it would be far from

nil. As for its limits, they are no more restricted than those of a "response,"

yours, which not only supposesthe appeal to which it responds in its own

fashion but also, without appealing to any action, is content to chronicle

1. Translator's note.-I might acknowledge receipt here of Anne McClintock's and

Rob Nixon's suggested revision to this translated title. In fact, however, I had alreadyconsidered and rejected "The Last Word in Racism" for reasons which may now have

become ironic. To me, the cliche "the last word in ... " suggested pop fashions or fads.

What is more, it is often used ironically to undercut the very finality it seems to announce.

I wanted to avoid these associations in order not to undermine, however subliminally, thesense and force of Jacques Derrida's appeal: that apartheidremain the final name of racism.




the word "apartheid," while advising that, rather than making history,we all ought to become more like historians. I quote from your conclusion:

"Instead," you say, "one would have to regard with an historical eye theuneven trafficbetween politicalinterests and an arrayof culturaldiscourses"

(p. 154). By the way, that's also what I did, as I will remind you in a

moment, but without stopping there. In this domain, as in all domains,no one strategy is sufficient; there is, by definition, no ideal and absolute

strategy. We have to multiply the approaches and conjugate efforts.

My "appeal" had to be launched according to a certain mode andin a determined context. You take no account of them. Isn't this a seriousmistake on the part of those who constantly invoke the relations between

words and history? If you had paid attention to the context and the modeof my text, you would not have fallen into the enormous blunder thatled you to take a prescriptiveutterance for a descriptive(theoretical and

constative) one. You write for example (and I warned you that I was

going to cite you often): "Because he views apartheidas a 'unique ap-

pellation,' Derrida has little to say about the politically persuasive function

that successive racist lexicons have served in South Africa" (p. 141). ButI never considered (or "viewed") apartheidas a "unique appellation." Iwrote something altogether different, and it is even the first sentence of

my text: "Apartheid-que cela reste le nom desormais, l'unique appellationau monde pour le dernier des racismes. Qu'il le demeure mais que vienneun jour . . . , " which Peggy Kamuf translates in the most rigorous fashion:

"APARTHEID-may that remain ... May it thus remain, but may a daycome... "(p. 291). This translationis faithful because it respects (somethingyou either could not or would not do) the grammatical, rhetorical, and

pragmatic specificity of the utterance. The latter is not an historian'sassertion concerning the lexicon of the South African racists or the pastvicissitudes of the word apartheid. It is an appeal, a call to condemn, to

stigmatize, to combat, to keep in memory; it is not a reasoned dictionaryof the use of the word apartheidor its pseudonyms in the discourseof theSouthAfrican leaders.One may think such an appeal is just too pathetic,one may judge its strategic force limited, but does one have the right totreat it as one would an historian's observation? To do so would be proofeither that one didn't know how to read (bywhich I mean how to distinguisha subjunctive, with the value of an imperative, from an indicative) orelse that one was ready to shortchange the ethics, to say nothing of the

politics, of reading or discussion. What is more, although it is not limited

by the form of descriptive observation, my "appeal" in no way contradictsthe historian's truth. Whatever may have been the vicissitudes of theword apartheid and especially of the desperate efforts of the Pretoria

regime's propagandists and officials to rid themselves of it (to rid themselvesof the word, and not the thing, of their word and not their thing!), noone can deny that apartheiddesignates today in the eyes of the whole

world, beyond all possible equivocation or pseudonymy, the last state




racism on the entire planet. I wanted therefore simply to formulate awish: may this word becomeand remain (subjunctive! optative or jussive

mode!) "the unique appellation" destined to maintain the memory ofand stigmatize this state racism. It was not a thesis on the genealogy ofa word but an appeal, a call to action, as you put it, and first of all anethical appeal, as indicated by that which, in both ethics and politics,passes by way of memory and promising, and thus by way of languageand denomination. Besides (and here I am speaking as a historian, that

is, in the indicative), whatever efforts the ideologues and official repre-sentatives of South Africa may have made to efface this embarrassingword from their discourse, whatever efforts you may make to keep track

of their efforts, the failure is not in doubt and historians can attest to it:the word apartheidremains and, as I hope or expect, it will remain the

"unique appellation" of this monstrous, unique, and unambiguous thing.You say "Derrida is repelled by the word" (p. 141). No, what I find

repulsive is the thing that history has now linked to the word, which is

why I propose keeping the word so that the history will not be forgotten.Don't separate word and history! That's what you say to those who ap-parently have not learned this lesson. It is the South African racists, theNational party, the Verwoerds and the Vorsters who ended up being

afraid of the word (theirword!), to whom it began to appear too repulsivebecause it had become so overseas. It's you, and not me, who also seemto be frightened by this word because you propose that we take seriouslyall the substitutes and pseudonyms, the periphrases and metonymies thatthe official discourse in Pretoria keeps coming up with: the tireless ruseof propaganda, the indefatigable but vain rhetoric of dissimulation. Tocounter it, I think the best strategy is to keep the word, the "uniqueappellation" that the South African racists and certain of their allieswould like to make people forget. No doubt one should also pay attention

to the rhetorical contortions of the ideologues and official politicians ofapartheid.But should we, because they wish it, abandon the word apartheidand no longer consider it to be the most accurate word with which to

designate this political reality, yesterday's and today's?I could limit myself to this remark about grammar or pragmatics.

In your haste, you took or pretended to take a subjunctive to be an

indicative, a jussive or optative utterance to be an assertion, an appealto be a thesis. At the same time, you took no account of what was never-theless realisticin my appeal, you missed the way, even in my syntax, the

performative was articulated with the constative (forgive me for usingthis language). In sum, I asked for a promise: let this "unique appellation""remain," which means that it already is this unique appellation. Who

can deny it? The official ideologues of South Africa can denegate it, but

they cannot deny that they are now alone in no longer using this word.And if I ask that we keep the word, it is only for the future, for memory,in men's and women's memory, for when the thing will have disappeared.




Thus, my appeal is indeed an appeal because it calls for something whichis not yet, but it is still strategically realistic because it refers to a massively

present reality, one which no historian could seriously put in question.It is a call to struggle but also to memory. I never separate promisingfrom memory.

Here, then, is a first point. I could stop at this: you confused two

verbal modes. Whether or not they are fighting against apartheid,whether

or not they are activists, historians must be attentive to rhetoric, to the

type and status of utterances, at the very least to their grammar. No

good strategy otherwise. Yet, I don't regret your reading error, however

elementary it might be. As everything in your paper follows from this

misreading which begins with the first sentence-what am I saying? withthe first two words ("APARTHEID-may.. . ")-just a moment's luciditywould have prevented your bringing out these documents on South

African policy, Critical Inquiry would not have opened its pages to this

debate, and that would have been too bad.So I could stop there, but to prolong the conversation, I will point

out still some other mistakes, just the most serious and spectacular ones.

2

Another question of reading, still just as elementary and directlylinked to the preceding one. You write: "The essay's opening analysis ofthe word apartheid is, then, symptomatic of a severance of word from

history. When Derrida asks, 'hasn't apartheid always been the archival

record of the unnameable?', the answer is a straightforward no. Despiteits notoriety and currency overseas, the term apartheidhas not alwaysbeen the 'watchword' of the Nationalist regime" (p. 141). Once again

you mistake the most evident meaning of my question. It did not concernthe use of the word by the Nationalist regime but its use value in the

world, "its notoriety and currency overseas," as you so rightly put it. Theword "always" in my text referred to this notoriety and there is littlematter here for disagreement. But I never said that apartheidhad "always"been the literal "watchword" within the Nationalist regime. And I findthe way you manage to slip the "always"out of mysentence ("but hasn't

apartheidalways been the archival record of the unnameable?") and into

yours ("the term apartheid has not always been the 'watchword' of the

Nationalist regime") to be less than honest. To be honest, you wouldhave had to quote the whole sentence in which I myself speak of the"watchword"as such. I do so precisely in order to say that this "watchword"

has a complex history, with its dates and places of emergence and dis-

appearance. I knew this before reading you and I emphasized it despitethe brevity of my text. Here, then, is my sentence-if you don't mind, I




will quote myself whenever you have not done so or whenever youmanipulate the quotations:

For one must not forget that, although racial segregation didn'twait for the name apartheid o come along, the name became order'swatchword and won its title in the political code of South Africa

only at the end of the Second World War. At a time when allracisms on the face of the earth were condemned, it was in theworld's face that the National party dared to campaign 'for the

separate developmentof each race in thegeographiczone assigned to it."

[Pp. 291-92]

This sentence, among others, gives a clear enough indication, I hope,of the historical concern with which I approached the question in general,and the question of the name apartheidin particular.

And while we're on the subject of this word, I would like to understand

the meaning of a certain "but"in a passage I am going to cite at length.Its logic totally escapes me. You write:

The word apartheid was coined by General Jan Smuts at the

SavoyHotel, London on 27

May1917 [I knew it was in London,

but I thought it was at the Lord Russell Hotel. Are you sure aboutthe Savoy? Check it. This is one point of history on which youwould have taught me something.] but had barely any currencyuntil it rose to prominence as the rallying cry of the Nationalist

party's victorious electoral campaign of 1948. [This is exactly2 whatI was recalling, incorrigible historian that I am, in the sentence I

just cited above. You might have mentioned that.] Derrida hasreflected on the word's "sinister renown," but [my emphasis, J. D.]as far back as the mid-fifties the South Africans themselves began

to recognize that the term apartheid had become sufficiently stig-matized to be ostentatiously retired. [P. 141]

So what? [In English in the text.] Why this "but"?Has the word apartheideffaced its "sinister renown" because the South Africans wanted to retire

it from circulation and precisely because of its "sinister renown"? It so

happens that in spite of their efforts to "retire" his "sufficientlystigmatized"term, the renown has not been effaced: it has gotten more and more

sinister. This is history, this is the relation between words and history.It's the

thingand the

concept theyshould have

retired,and not

justthe

word, if they had wanted to put an end to the "sinister renown." So whythis "but"?What objection is it making? Should I have said nothing about

2. Translator's note.-The exactness is still more striking when one recalls that Derrida's

term motd'ordre, ranslated as "watchword," could also have been rendered by McClintock's

and Nixon's term: "rallying cry."




the "sinister renown" because the South African Nationalists deemed it

advisable to clean up their lexicon?

The unfortunate thing is that your entire text is organized aroundthe incredible "logic," if one can call it that, of this "but"; it is even

oriented by the stupefying politics of this "but." You are asking that we

regulate our vocabulary by the lexical strategies of the South African

regime! For, immediately after the passage just cited, you go on to write:

The developing history of South African racial policy and propa-

ganda highlights the inaccuracy of Derrida's claim that South Africanracism is "the only one on the scene that dares to say its name and

present itself for what it is." For in striving both to win greaterlegitimacy for itself and to justify ideologically the Nationalist ban-tustan policy, South African racism has long since ceased to pro-nounce its own name: apartheid, the term Derrida misleadinglycalls "the order's watchword"motd'ordre),was dismissed many yearsback from the lexical ranks of the regime. [Pp. 141-42]

What do you want? That everyone stop considering hat apartheid s-and

remains, as far as I know, still today-the watchword, the rallying cry,

the concept, and the reality of the South African regime? And even thateveryone stop sayingit, on the pretext that the South African racists deem

it more prudent to utter it no more, this word which you yourselves

recognize to be the "proper name" of this racism, the word it has givenitself, "its own name" ("South African racism" you clearly say, "has longsince ceased to pronounce its own name: apartheid... " [p. 142])? Come

on, you're not being very serious, either as historians or as politicalstrategists. Where would we be, where would all those struggling againstapartheid e if they had considered that apartheid eased to be the watchword

of the South African regime on the day that, as you put it so well, "theNationalist party ... radically rephrased its ideology"! (p. 142). Becausethat happened in 1950, it would have been necessary to stop talkingabout apartheid from then on! Thanks all the same for your strategicadvice and your reminder of historical reality! You speak of a "quarantinefrom the historical process" but it's you, coming on the heels of theNationalist regime, who want to put the word apartheid n quarantine! I,on the other hand, insist that we continue to use the word, so that we

may remember it, in spite of all the verbal denegations and lexical strat-

agems of the South African racists. I, on the contrary, insist that weremember this: whether or not the term is pronounced by South African

officials, apartheid remains the effectivewatchword of power in South

Africa. Still today. If you think, on the other hand, that it's necessary totake account of the diplomatic prudence or the lexical ruses of this powerto the point of no longer speaking of apartheidas a watchword, well, then

you're going to have to ask the whole world to go along with you and




not just me. Historical reality, dear comrades, is that in spite of all the

lexicological contortions you point out, those in power in South Africa

have not managed to convince the world, and first of all because, stilltoday, they have refused to change the real, effective, fundamental meaningof their watchword: apartheid.A watchword is not just a name. This too

history teaches us, as you should know since you're so concerned with

history. A watchword is also a concept and a reality. The relation amongthe reality, the concept, and the word is always more complex than youseem to suppose. The South Africans in power wanted to keep the conceptand the reality while effacing the word, an evil word, their word. Theyhave managed to do so in their official discourse, that's all. Everywhere

else in the world, and first of all among black South Africans, peoplehave continued to think that the word was indissolubly-and legitimately-welded to the concept and to the reality. And if you're going to struggle

against this historicalconcept and this historicalreality, well, then you've

got to call a thing by its name. What would have happened if throughoutthe world-in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, or in the Americas-peoplehad sworn off speaking of racism, anti-Semitism, or slavery on the pretextthat the offenders never spoke of these things or did not use those words,better yet no longerused those words? In the best hypothesis and assuming

one didn't want to accuse it of simple complicity with the adversary, sucha strategy would have been both childish and disastrous.

So I stand by what I said. One must be attentive, and I was, to the

word, to the watchword, and to their history. One must be attentive to

what links words to concepts and to realities but also to what can dissociate

them. Now if even as it kept the concept and the reality, the power in

South Africa has tried to get rid of the word, nobody has been fooled.

The concept and the reality persist, under other names, and South African

racism, I repeat, "is the only one on the scene that dares to say its name

and present itself for what it is," which is to say a state racism, the onlyone in the world today which does not hide its face. When I wrote that

it "dares to say its name," I wanted to recall simply this: apartheid mayhave disappeared since 1950 from official speech or from the dispensariesof propaganda as if by magic, but this changes nothing in the fact ("factsare stubborn," you know) that the system of apartheid s not only practicedbut inscribed n the constitutionand in an impressive judicial apparatus. In

other words, it is declared,assumed,publiclyapproved.To speak one's name,in politics (as history has shown over and over), is not simply to make

use of a substantive but to present oneself as such, for what one is, incomplex discourses, the texts of the law or of socioeconomic, even policeand "physical" practices. In politics, as history should have taught you,a "watchword" is not limited to a lexicon. You confuse words and history.Or rather, you make poor distinctions between them.

What would have happened if I had followed your "strategic"advice?I would not have called for a fight against the state racism named apartheid




(so named at the outset by its inventors!); instead I would have cautiouslymurmured as you do: "Careful, don't say apartheid anymore, you no

longer have the right to use this word in order to name the watchwordof South African racism because those who instituted the word, the

concept, and the thing have not 'pronounced' the word since 1950"! Or

maybe this: "Don't say apartheidanymore, but know that since 1948 there

have been 'three phases' of racial policy in South Africa. Only the firstof these (1948-58) would have been an 'ideological, doctrinaire, and

negative' phase; the second (1958-66) is the one that 'mellowed into the

homeland phase of separate development,' 'internal decolonisation'; the

third, since 1966, would correspond to 'the unobtrusive dismantling of

apartheid,' the movement away from discrimination,' 'the elimination ofcolor as a determinant' and the introduction of 'democratic pluralism.' "

Should I have said all that each time in place of the word apartheid?All

that, which is to say what? Well, what you say by citing F. A. van Jaarsveld,"an apologist for the Nationalist regime," for the "periodizing changesin the officialdiscourse"and for "the regime's justificatory ideology" (p.142). Should I have been content to reproduce this official discourse? It

is, in fact, the only one you cite at any length-the point of view of blacks

being less represented in your text than that of apartheid'spartisans, even

if you must admit that their "ruse has failed politically" (p. 147).I'm still trying to imagine what I should have written if I had been

carefully following your "strategic" advice. Perhaps I should have said:

You know, apartheid s no longer the right word, even racism s no longerthe right word because ever since "the development of the bantustan

policy," "'the problem in South Africa is basically not one of race, but

of nationalism, which is a world-wide problem. There is White nationalism,and there are several Black nationalisms' " (p. 144). Unfortunately, if I

had done that, I would have been quoting you quoting Verwoerd or

Vorster, or else at best I would have written a paper on the ideologicalstrategies of state racism in South Africa. But I would not have said theessential thing, to wit: apartheid,as a state racism and under the name

initially chosen by the Nationalist party, then in control in South Africa,has been and remains the effective and official practice, still today, in

spite of all the denegations and certain softening touches to the facade

(which, by the way, I also mentioned). And apartheidmust be fought assuch. Once again, it's a question of context and of "pragmatics": I wrotea brief text for an exhibit entitled "Art against Apartheid" and not a

paper on Verwoerd's and Vorster's rhetoric, whatever interest there maybe in knowing the resources of this discourse. And despite the constraintson the length of my text, I also spoke of the secondary transformationsof apartheid (p. 295), of the discourse, the culture, what I call the "official

lie," the 'judicial simulacrum," and the "political theater" (p. 294) that

organize the racist and nationalist ideology in South Africa (see in particularparts 3 and 4). If you think apartheid has effectively given way to one




nationalism among others, then you ought to have said so. If you don't

think that's the case, well, then I don't see what objection you can have

with me.

3

In spite of the brevity of my text, I never made do with what youcall "such favored monoliths of post-structuralism as 'logocentrism' and'Western metaphysics,' not to mention bulky homogeneities such as 'theoccidental essence of the historical process' and a 'European "discourse"

on the concept of race' " (p. 154). To be sure, I said, and I'll say it again,that the history of apartheid(its "discourse" and its "reality," the totalityof its text)would have been impossible, unthinkable without the Europeanconcept and the European history of the state, without the Europeandiscourse on race-its scientific pseudoconcept and its religious roots, its

modernity and its archaisms-without Judeo-Christian ideology, and so

forth. Do you think the contrary? If so, I'd like to see the demonstration.

That said, you would have shown a little more honesty if you had noted

that, far from relying on "monoliths" or "bulky homogeneities," I constantly

emphasized heterogeneity, contradictions, tensions, and uneven devel-opment. "Contradiction" is the most frequently occurring word in mytext. You force me to quote myself again. I spoke of "a contradiction

internal to the West and to the assertion of its rights" (p. 294). I even

wrote that one is right to insist on these contradictions ("and it bears

repeating" [p. 294]) and that one must never simplify ("but let us never

simplify matters" [p. 297]). Is that what you call monolithism? In spiteof the brevity of my text, I multiplied the examples of "contradiction"

in the theologico-political discourse, of the strategic "contradiction" of

the West, of economic contradiction (see pp. 296, 295). Is that a sign ofmonolithic thinking and a preference for homogeneity? This will surelyhave been the first time I have met with such a reproach, and I fear youdeserve it more than I do.

4

To what level of bad faith must one stoop in order to palm off on

me the credo of unbridled capitalism by implying that, in my view, itwould suffice to let the law of the marketplace work to put an end to

apartheid?You have the nerve, for example, to write the following: "The

revisionists argue, against Derrida [!!!], that far from hurting the market

economy, 'racial policy is an historical product..,. designed primarily tofacilitate rapid capital accumulation, and has historically been used thus

by all classes with access to state power in South Africa' " (p. 148). On




thecontrary,I have always thought that there was some truth-it's statingthe obvious-in this "revisionist" view. If, however, I alsosaid that, despite

the apparent contradiction, "apartheidalso increases nonproductive ex-penditures (for example, each 'homeland' must have its own policingand administrative machinery); segregation hurts the market economy,limits free enterprise by limiting domestic consumption and the mobilityand training of labor" (p. 295), I did so because it's true and especiallyas

a reminder that, if apartheid s abolished one day, it will not be for purelymoral reasons. You force me to quote myself again, the passage immediately

following the sentence you have just read:

In a time of unprecedented economic crisis, South Africa has to

reckon, both internally and externally, with the forces of a liberalcurrent according to which "apartheids notoriously inefficient fromthe point of view of economic rationality" [I'm not speaking here,this is a quote]. This too will have to remain in memory: if one

day apartheid is abolished, its demise will not be credited only tothe account of moral standards-because moral standards shouldnot count or keep accounts, to be sure, but also because, on thescale which is that of a worldwide computer, the law of the mar-

ketplace will have imposed another standard of calculation. [Pp.295-96]

After you had read that, it is quite simply indecent to make me out

to be pleadingfor capitalism or suggesting that laws of the marketplace

ought to be allowed free rein because all by themselvesthey would take

care of apartheid.You have the nerve nonetheless to do just that. Your

argument at this point reaches such a degree of bad faith that I even

wondered whether I ought to continue our dialogue in these conditions

and respond to CriticalInquiry'sgenerous invitation. You actually go sofar as to speak of "Derrida's optimistic vision of apartheidbrought to its

knees by a liberalizing capitalism ... " and you continue: "Indeed, if

Derrida takes to its logical conclusion his argument that apartheid maybe abolished by the imposition of the 'law of the market,' he will findhimself in the position of advocating accelerated international investmentin order to hasten the collapse of the regime"! (p. 153). To be sure, I

defy you to find the least hint in my text of such an "optimistic vision"

(even supposing that it is optimistic!). Had I such a "vision," I would not

have written anything "against apartheid."I would have thought: laissonsfaire le capital! That said, here again things are complex, heterogeneous,and contradictory, whether you like it or not. Apartheidcan at the sametime serve the interests of capitalist accumulation and get in the way of

capitalist development. One has to distinguish here among different

phases and various capitalisms or different, even contradictory sectors of

capitalism. No more than logocentrism and the West, capitalism is not




a monolith or a "bulky homogeneity." Have you ever heard of the con-

tradictions of capitalism? Is it really that difficult for you to imagine how

apartheid might serve capitalism in certain conditions and impede freeenterprise at some other moment, in other conditions? You see, I fear

you have a simple, homogeneistic, and mechanistic vision of history and

politics.

5

One last point with which perhaps I should have begun. It's about

your first paragraph, that little word "beyond"which you underline ("beyondthe text") and what you call my "method." Once again, it's best that I

quote you: "If, then, Derrida seeks not merely to prize open certaincovert metaphysical assumptions but also to point to something beyondthe text, in this case the abolition of a regime, then the strategic valueof his method has to be considered seriously" (p. 140).

I am not sure I clearly understand the extent of what you mean by

my "method." If you mean my "method" in this text against apartheid,in the appeal that I launch and in my treatment of the word apartheid,

I have just answered you and told you what I think of your methods. Butif you are suggesting that my "method" in this specific case reveals all

that my "method" in general and elsewhere could learn from your lessons,well in that case, there are one or two more things I will have to add. I

am led to think that you mean to contest, beyond the precise context of

apartheid,the "strategic value" of my "method" in general by the allusions

or insinuations tied to the word "text" ("beyondhe text" is no doubt, and

I'll come back to this in a moment, a clever, oh so clever nod in the

direction of something I once said: there is nothing beyond the text), by

the use of the word "post-structuralism" (which I myself have never usedbut which is commonly applied to me), or by words such as "logocentrism,""Western metaphysics," and so forth.

A serious response here would take hundreds and hundreds of pages,and we mustn't abuse CriticalInquiry'shospitality. Know, however, that

these pages are already written. If you wish to continue our correspondence

privately, I will give you some exact references.

But one thing at least I can tell you now: an hour's reading, beginningon any page of any one of the texts I have published over the last twenty

years, should suffice for you to realize that text, as I use the word, is notthe book. No more than writing or trace, it is not limited to the paperwhich you cover with your graphism. It is precisely for strategic reasons

(set forth at length elsewhere) that I found it necessary to recast the

concept of text by generalizing it almost without limit, in any case without

present or perceptible limit, without any limit that is. That's why there

is nothing "beyond he text." That's why South Africa and apartheidare,




like you and me, part of this general text, which is not to say that it can

be read the way one reads a book. That's why the text is always a field

of forces: heterogeneous, differential, open, and so on. That's why de-constructive readings and writings are concerned not only with librarybooks, with discourses, with conceptual and semantic contents. They are

not simply analyses of discourse such as, for example, the one you propose.

They are also effective or active (as one says) interventions, in particular

political and institutional interventions that transform contexts without

limiting themselves to theoretical or constative utterances even though

they must also produce such utterances. That's why I do not go "beyondthe text," in this new sense of the word text, by fighting and calling for

a fight against apartheid,for example. I say "for example" because it alsohappens that I become involved with institutional and academic politicsor get myself imprisoned in Czechoslovakia for giving seminars prohibitedby the authorities. Too bad if all this strikes you as strange or intolerablebehavior on the part of someone whom you, like others, would like tobelieve remains enclosed in some "prison-house of language." Not only,then, do I not go "beyond the text," in this new sense of the word text

(no more than anyone else can go beyond it, not even the most easy-to-recognize activists), but the strategic reevaluation of the concept of text

allows me to bring together in a more consistent fashion, in the mostconsistent fashion possible, theoretico-philosophical necessities with the

"practical,"political, and other necessities of what is called deconstruction.

The latter, by the way, has never presented itself as a method, for essential

reasons that I explain elsewhere (once again, if you care to write to me,I'll send you the references).

This letter is too long. In order to hasten its conclusion, I will give

you my opinion in two words:

1. Your "response" is typical. It reflects an incomprehension or "mis-

reading" that is widespread, and spread about, moreover, for very de-termined ends, on the "Left" and the "Right," among those who think

they represent militantism and a progressivist commitment as well as

among neoconservatives. It is in the interest of one side and the other

to represent deconstruction as a turning inward and an enclosure by the

limits of language, whereas in fact deconstruction beginsbydeconstructing

logocentrism, the linguistics of the word, and this very enclosure itself.On one side and the other, people get impatient when they see that

deconstructive practices are also and first of all political and institutional

practices. They get impatient when they see that these practices areperhaps more radical and certainly less stereotyped than others, less easyto decipher, less in keeping with well-used models whose wear and tear

ends up by letting one see the abstraction, the conventionalism, the

academism, and everything that separates, as you would say, words and

history. In a word, verbalism. On one side and the other, on one handand on the other hand (but you see now how the two hands join and




maintain each other [comme les deux mains se tiennent, maintenant]),there is an interest in believing, in pretending to believe, or simply in

making others believe that the "text"which concerns "deconstructionists"(this is the first time I use this word and I do so, as others have done,to go quickly) can be found neatly in its place on some library shelves.That being the case, in order to act (!) in the area of real politics, in

history (!), these poor "deconstructionists" should go "beyond he text,"into the field, to the front! As you do, I suppose.

Well, it so happens that the text which various deconstructions are

speaking of today is not at all the paper or the paperbackwith which youwould like to identify it. If there is nothing "beyondhe text," in this new

sense, then that leaves room for the most open kinds of political (butnot just political) practice and pragmatics. It even makes them more

necessary than ever. But that is no reason-on the contrary-to give up

reading the books and writings still to be found in libraries. It is no

reason to read quickly or badly or to stop learning how to read otherwise

other texts--especially if one wants to better adjust one's political strategies.It is thus no reason to continue to spread the most uneducated inter-

pretations and the crudest prejudices about "deconstruction," the "text,"or "logocentrism." It is no reason to go on manipulating them as you

do, to keep rolling them along in a primitive fashion, after having erectedthem into monolithic menhirs.

2. So, you share the impatience of those who would like texts to

remain in the libraries, who would like text to signify "book." And youwant this order maintained: let all those who concern themselves with

texts understood in this latter sense (the "deconstructionists"!) remain in

their compartments, better yet in their departments! Let no "deconstruc-tionists" concern themselves with politics since, as we all know, don't we,

deconstruction, differance, writing, and all that are (in the best of cases)

politically neutral, ahistorical! Those people are not to concern themselveswith politics because we always believed that they never did, that theyleft such things to the qualified, conscious, and organized activists whom

we clearly are according to that good old tradition[in English in the text]which anyone can easily recognize. Otherwise, you seem to be saying,what would be left for us to do? Let the theoreticians of literature concern

themselves with literature, philosophers with philosophy, historians with

history, Africanists with Africa, and we, the activists, with politics! There,that's the best strategy! When a "deconstructionist," as one says, concerns

himself with apartheid,even if he is on the "good" side, his strategy is allwrong, he's getting mixed up with things that are none of his business

because he's going "beyond he text"! He exceeds the limits of his com-

petence, leaves his own territory! "The strategic value of his method has

to be considered seriously"!In short, you are for the division of labor and the disciplined respect

of disciplines. Each must stick to his role and stay within the field of his



170 CriticalResponse JacquesDerrida

competence, none may transgress the limits of his territory. Oh, youwouldn't go so far as to wish that some sort of apartheidremain or become

the law of the land in the academy. Besides, you obviously don't like thisword. You are among those who don't like this word and do not want

it to remain the "unique appellation." No, in the homelands of academic

culture or of "political action," you would favor instead reserved do-

mains, the separate development of each community in the zone assignedto it.

Not me.

Cordially,

Jacques Derrida

6 February 1986

Postscript April 1986): I am rereading the translation of this letter while

in the United States, at several universities (Yale, Harvard, Columbia)which have seen an intensification of demonstrations against apartheid:the divestiture movement, "shantytowns," student arrests, and so on. I

want to reiterate my admiration and solidarity. Such courageous dem-onstrations on campuses are also signs of strategic lucidity because the

problem of apartheid s surely an Americanproblem,as are so many others.In a first sense, this means that its evolution will depend from now on in

large measure on American pressure. These signs of lucidity are carried

by an energy and perseverance which cannot be explained simplyby the

economy of necessarily ambiguous motivations. Some might be temptedin effect to seek there the mechanism and dynamic of bad conscience.The latter is alwaysquicker to ariseamong intellectuals and at the university,

especially in universities obliged to manage their capital. For here again,and in a secondsense, apartheidwould be an Americanproblem.Accordingto this insufficient but necessary hypothesis, apartheidmight have to be

put at some remove, expulsed, objectified, held at a distance, preventedfrom returning (as a ghost returns), parted with, treated, and cured over

there,in South Africa. Apartheidmight bear too great a resemblance to a

segregation whose image continues at the very least to haunt American

society. No doubt, this segregation has become more urban, industrial,socioeconomic (the frightening percentage of young black unemployed,

for example), less immediately racial in its phenomenon. But this mightrecall much more, by some of its features, the South African hell.

but, beyond ... (open letter to anne mcclintock and rob nixon)

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